J5create ScreenCast Wireless Display Adapter

Microsoft discontinued its Wireless Display Adapter some years ago, and finding a replacement has been difficult. The great advantage of the MS one was that you just plugged it in to your big TV HDMI port and a USB for power, and any current laptop could connect to it just by pressing Windows-K. All the newer dongles support multiple protocols and require a good deal of setting up. The J5 has all that too, and begins with a discouraging screenful of Chinese characters. The good news is that you can ignore all that and your laptop will connect to it the same as with the old MS device. One potential problem is that not all TVs provide enough...view more Microsoft discontinued its Wireless Display Adapter some years ago, and finding a replacement has been difficult. The great advantage of the MS one was that you just plugged it in to your big TV HDMI port and a USB for power, and any current laptop could connect to it just by pressing Windows-K. All the newer dongles support multiple protocols and require a good deal of setting up. The J5 has all that too, and begins with a discouraging screenful of Chinese characters. The good news is that you can ignore all that and your laptop will connect to it the same as with the old MS device. One potential problem is that not all TVs provide enough USB power, but a mains adapter fixes that. It comes with a longer USB cord. Fortunately my TV was ok, so the installation is compact and neat and (nearly) foolproof.

I've had a disappointing experience with this product. Out of the box the display output on the TV was stuck in a foreign language. Logging into the devices web admin I found the correct menu and adjusted it to English. The setting does not persist even when saved. Further, casting even using a fast 5GHz network produces jittery video playback.

On two android phones we tried, there was no native casting functionality available within the Netflix app and the Android OS screencasting available within Android Settings again produced jittery playback and a blank full screen on the TV (content protection I assume.

I've contaced the manufacturer ...view more I've had a disappointing experience with this product. Out of the box the display output on the TV was stuck in a foreign language. Logging into the devices web admin I found the correct menu and adjusted it to English. The setting does not persist even when saved. Further, casting even using a fast 5GHz network produces jittery video playback.

On two android phones we tried, there was no native casting functionality available within the Netflix app and the Android OS screencasting available within Android Settings again produced jittery playback and a blank full screen on the TV (content protection I assume.

I've contaced the manufacturer directly for help and so far have recieved nothing useful from them: a suggestion to reset the device to factory defaults and to use the device in P2P mode (direct WiFi connection between the casting device and J5) to reduce lag. The latter suggestion did not help, let alone being inconvenient requiring two wireless radios in the device for concurrent internet access via WiFi and a direct connection to the J5...